expert perspective

The Arts and Crafts movement started in England in the 1830s and ’40s, and moved on through William Morris to the late nineteenth century, both in England and in the United States, as well as having influence all over the place. This particular group that centered around William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite painters felt that truth was important in their mission. The reaction is against the Industrial Age and the proliferation of cheaply made and not necessarily well-designed objects. There was a strong moralistic streak to this. There was a sense that the Industrial Revolution seemed to be degrading life and that morality was in fact very much on the wane. They had a very grand notion that design impacts everybody’s life every day, and that uninspired, bad design denigrates quality of life. Also the inspiration for this movement in the 1830s—this is when you have Byron and Shelley and the Romantic poets. Morris himself was actually better known in his day as a philosopher and as a poet. And it was only in the later nineteenth century that we think of him more in terms of his designs.

Morris was basically a socialist who wanted good design for all people. But, of course, the cost of hand producing things was high. And therefore, the only way to really enable large numbers of people to have this was to do the style of the hand-crafted, but not necessarily hand-crafted throughout. It really came to William Morris to pinpoint it in terms of furnishings and in his case he was probably most successful in his designs for wall coverings, wallpapers, and textiles.”